A Wife’s Claim About Who She Was Is the Point

She brought her marriage license and wedding photographs to court, just as she had taken them to a hospital three years ago seeking permission to visit the dying man she believed to be her husband.

Gloria Barron had failed then in 1984, mainly because other women claiming to be married to Thomas Barron were also demanding to see him.

On Friday, Gloria Barron was trying to convince a judge that she deserves compensation for the emotional damage she suffered as a result of that.

Humana Hospital West Anaheim and Anaheim Memorial Hospital, both of which had treated Thomas Barron between July 11, 1984, when he suffered a massive heart attack, and July 23, when he died at age 57, are defendants in the $1-million lawsuit.

Lawyers for both hospitals denied any wrongdoing in what one of them described as the “chaos.”

“Several people purporting to be the wife appeared,” said Steven R. Odell, attorney for Anaheim Memorial Hospital. “Several girlfriends appeared. The children of numerous liaisons and marriages appeared.”

Odell told Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert C. Todd, who is hearing the case without a jury, that the hospital focused its attention on treating the dying man.

Faced with the confusing array of women, both hospitals placed Barron’s eldest son, David, in charge of visiting schedules.

Gloria and Thomas Barron were married in 1981 in Las Vegas, according to the license produced by her lawyer, Edi M.O. Faal.

They lived together in an Anaheim apartment until July 11, when Gloria took Thomas to Humana Hospital West Anaheim after he complained of chest pains.

Called His Son

She called David, Thomas Barron’s son with whom he worked in an auto repossession business, Gloria testified Friday, and when he arrived at the hospital, she had left to get some sleep.

When she returned that evening, she testified, she was told by nurses in the intensive care unit that she was not Thomas’ “legal wife.”

Despite her protests, her visits thereafter were limited to 10 minutes, while the visits of other relatives and friends were not so limited, Gloria testified.

The nurses “would ask me to leave,” Gloria told Todd. “I’d say, ‘I’d like to stay. I’m his wife. I have a right to stay.’ ”

“They’d say, ‘Which one?’ ” she testified. “ ‘What number are you?’ ”

Thomas Barron was transferred from Humana West to Anaheim Memorial on July 17, but Gloria, who now lives in Mira Loma, said she was not informed and only discovered the change when she tried to visit her husband at Humana West.

Barred From Visiting

At Anaheim Memorial, the 10-minute rule was imposed again, she testified. Then on July 21, two days before Thomas Barron’s death, Gloria was completely barred from the hospital, she said.

“I wasn’t allowed in the hospital. When I called, they said they wouldn’t give me any information.”

Faal, Gloria’s attorney, claims that his client suffered physically and emotionally.

Humana West lawyer Glenn H. Clark denied any wrongdoing on the part of the hospital. He said the decision to appoint a relative to sort out visiting schedules was “reasonable by all standards of protocol for intensive care units in hospitals throughout the Los Angeles-Orange county area.”

Hospital employees were primarily concerned about “obligations to the patient, and they fulfilled those obligations,” Clark said.

In all, five women claiming to be Barron’s wives visited him before he died. An arbitrator appointed to mediate the case determined last year that Thomas’ divorce from a prior wife did not become final until 1984, three years after Gloria’s Las Vegas marriage.